Argenteuil. Argenteuil is a commune in the northwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located 12.3 km from the center of Paris. Argenteuil is a sub-prefecture of the Val-d'Oise department, the seat of the arrondissement of Argenteuil. Argenteuil is the second most populous commune in the suburbs of Paris and the most populous one in the Val-d'Oise department, although it is not its prefecture, which is shared between the communes of Cergy and Pontoise. Argenteuil shares borders with communes in 3 departements others than Val d'Oise: the Yvelines, Hauts-de-Seine and Seine-Saint-Denis departements. The name Argenteuil is recorded for the first time in a royal charter of 697 as Argentoialum, from a Latin / Gaulish root argento meaning silver, silvery, shiny, perhaps in reference to the gleaming surface of the river Seine, on the banks of which Argenteuil is located, and from a Celtic suffix-ialo meaning clearing, glade or place of. Argenteuil was founded as a convent in the 7th century. The monastery that arose from the convent was destroyed during the French Revolution. A rural escape for Parisians, it is now a suburb of Paris. Painters made Argenteuil famous, including Claude Monet, Jean-Etienne Delacroix, Auguste Renoir, Gustave Caillebotte, Alfred Sisley and Georges Braque.